Scimitar Elite Wireless SE MMO PC Gaming Mouse – 33,000 DPI, 16 Programmable Buttons, Key Slider, Elgato Virtual Stream Deck, 1,000Hz Polling, Up to 150-Hour Battery – Gunmetal

This is more of a "first impressions" review right now, and there's no immediate red flags. I'll update this later once I've put some hours in with it. Off the jump, this mouse feels amazing in my hand. I have pretty big hands, and I'm coming from a Logitech G600 for comparison. The Scimitar is around the same size? It's slightly longer top to bottom, and slightly narrower side to side, but my hand still rests very comfortably on the mouse. It's noticeably lighter than the G600, too, which is great for FPS gaming. There's a screw on the bottom of the mouse with an included allen key to let you adjust the position of the 12-button panel so you can adjust your thumb's reach. Super nice idea, but when you loosen the screw, the panel moves way too loosely, so you have to hold it in your hand firmly while tightening the screw with your probably non-dominant hand. To make matters worse, the included allen key is not quite the right size for the screw, so it skips while you're tightening it back down. (And no, I'm not over-tightening it - it's still able to move very loosely at that point!) That aside, it feels very good in the hand and very responsive. I don't notice any drop outs or latency, and the included USB A to C cable is very high quality. If you care about Linux compatibility, then I'm happy to report no issues thus far. (I have not and will not download the Corsair software to customize the mouse at all, so no comments on that. If you care about that, then try it at your own risk.)

So, I've owned 3 of these over the last 7 years. My first purchase of it was at another retailer in 2017 (when I first got into Final Fantasy XIV and wanted an MMO-style mouse) and my second was also from another retailer in 2020. I use one on my desktop and one for my laptop. My desktop one croaked after 8 years of service, and so I bought another one, from Amazon this time (Prime Day Deals, thank goodness). Pros 1. Good weight. Not too heavy, not too light (for me at least). 2. Lighting is nice without being overbearing. 3. Works with iCue without any issues. 4. I use mine for productivity and work, so I actually do use the profiles on iCue, and being able to swap from gaming to productivity with a button press (with different lights to tell me what profile I'm using) is supremely useful. 5. Scroll wheel feels good. Nice weight, dampened clicks. Feels premium (I've opened it up, it's not, but it feels good). 6. Good clicks and the side buttons are easy for my thumb to reach and hit. 7. The side number pad was very good for intermediate-level MMO play. I ended up doing a funky hotkey setup for endgame that used mostly my keyboard, but the mouse did good for the original purposes I bought it for. Cons 1. It's not easy to clean. The rubber parts get grimy with human hand oils n such, and rubber is just rough to clean anyway, especially with the triangle texture. In any case, for my level of gaming and productivity, these are virtually perfect. When my 8-year old one bit the dust, I immediately bought another and set it up the same way as the one that croaked, and I'll probably keep buying them until Corsair stops making them. There are better mice for specific applications, but this one fits me and what I do no problem.

Been using Corsair's 12 button mouse since the launch of WoW classic & really changed up the way ai play for the better. Takes some getting used to at first, but can't imagine going back without it. First one was wired that I had to replace due to the mouse wheel malfunctioning after a time. Looks like Corsair is putting more updated development into their wireless iteration than the wired as I hadn't seen any new models for the wired at the time of purchasing this...so went with the wireless this time albeit more money. Hopefully the scroll wheel lasts this go around. Wireless is preferred for a mouse anyway....and this shows in product development; conversely, theres more development on wired keyboards than there are wireless.

Update: I am lowering my initial score lower due to the middle mouse wheel starting to fail. The mouse wheel will slip and either not register the movement, or slip backwards in the opposite direction. It should go without saying, that for gaming this is completely unacceptable. Looking at reviews and comments this appears to be so consistent it should be considered a feature of the mouse. You can temporarily "fix" this by disassembling the mouse and greasing the mouse wheel, but it seems that people end up having to do this every few months once it starts, honestly it is not worth my time to do that. Strangely, the software has gotten slightly better, at least up until the most recent update, where it started to fail again. It has been more reliable most of the time, but I doubt the initial setup has gotten any better. As things stand right now, within about a year you will have to buy a new mouse or start doing frequent maintenance where you have to disassemble the mouse. Between the short life of the middle mouse wheel, and the software still not being that great, I would strongly recommend against this mouse. Mouse: 1/10 iCue: 3/10 Original Review: The mouse itself is great. It feels good in the hand and the adjustable keypad is very convenient. The only issue that I have with the mouse itself is that the scroll wheel does not operate like a back and forward button (no left / right movement). But that is a minor gripe when coming from the logitech G600. I do like that you can see the DPI via the color of the LED at the thumb, that is a nice feature. The single biggest failure of the mouse is the iCUE software. Now to start off I have used iCUE for awhile now, I have a corsair keyboard and LED fans, so I do use the software quite a bit. But for whatever reason they made the mouse interactions extremely dumb. Everything from needing to manually program every button in the default profile (because why would you want to use the number keys?) to the hardware profiles not really saving (if they save they are corrupt and get reset when you start iCUE again). Every time that my screen locks, I lose access to the number keys. This would be helpful for signing into my desktop, but not the end of the world. The real annoying part is when you do login the profile that should be loaded on to the mouse gets loaded, due to the way the communication protocol works for USB devices the mouse itself goes unresponsive for a few seconds. All that being said, I think my biggest problem with the iCUE software is that profiles are completely isolated and do not have any sort of stacking. Not really a big issue if you are only using a mouse or keyboard. Kinda a big issue when you have multiple devices and LEDs being controlled by the software. Ultimately if you hit the change profile button on the mouse (and you will, a lot), you go to a blank profile that basically turns everything off. Overall the software is not well thought out and not user friendly. Mouse: 4/10 iCUE Software: 0/10

Well-made, highly customizable, and ridiculously difficult to get adjusted to. But once you’re adjusted to it, well worth the price paid. However, do not drop it. Your scroll wheel will kick the bucket.

I play WoW, like most folks looking at this mouse, and wanted to not be handicapped all the time by hitting the number keys on my keyboard. This mouse is THE SOLUTION. It works great, looks good, and the software is intuitive and simple. I had it all up and running in under 15 mins, and I'm 100% not a computer-savvy person at all. I love that it's wired so I don't have to worry about charging. The programmable lights are great and now the red LED glow matches my tower, very cool. The movable 12-key pad is convenient, but for bigger hands (L or XL men's size) you'll be maxing it out and probably could use another 1/2 inch forward, but it's totally serviceable. Glides smooth over my regular trackpad, and the weight and grip seems standard for gaming mouses. No complaints. Admittedly, I bought this and thought I would becoming a PvP arena god overnight... It takes some getting used to. Like playing an instrument, knowing intuitively which key is #7 compared to #3 or #12 takes some practice. But I've been using it 2-3 hours a day over the last week and already I'm 2x as fast and more accurate than when I started. In a month of regular use, anybody could master it. Looking forward to being that arena god one day ;) Lastly! I love that this mouse is designed in Milpitas, California and has software from a reputable company not looking to steal your information. Not pointing any fingers at anyone, but there are some cheaper MMO-mouses on the market that I wouldn't want to install that software on my computer or touch it with a ten-foot-pole... Be MINDFUL of where your products and software are coming from, especially when the difference is just 20 bucks. Just a heads up. Stay safe out there, and see you in Azeroth.

A great mouse if you play MMOs a lot, but the buttons can have separate profiles to where you can use the side buttons for macros in other apps! The iCue software can be a pain in the @$$, but it is what it is. I really appreciate being able to adjust the position of the cluster of side buttons to fit my thumb’s reach. This is my second one, as the first one got messed up during my move. (User error.)

I am a big believer in the value of “MMO” mice, in basically every genre of games, including FPS’s. With those side buttons on the mouse, you never need to take your fingers off WASD to switch weapons or use abilities, so you never need to stop moving – it provides a concrete advantage. Sadly, the quality of MMO mice has been dropping over the last couple of years. The Razer Naga would only last me a year, and I went through three of them before I decided to try the Corsair Scimitar. I got my first one years ago, back when the mouse still had yellow accents. The software was clunky, and it still is, though it has gotten better. However, after about a year, the scroll wheel broke. I tried a Logitech mouse at the recommendation of my friends, but it was too small for my hands and it gave me cramps. The Scimitar is certainly comfortable, and I definitely appreciate that I can move the side keypad. So I went back to the Scimitar. I bought a used one that had been repaired, and it only took a handful of weeks before the scroll wheel broke. On their forums, Corsair has insisted that there are no manufacturing defects with the Scimitar. A cursory google search about scroll wheel breakage will reveal that this isn’t so - it happens often enough for there to be plenty of reports of exactly this issue. In fact, I found a youtube video which dissected the mouse and demonstrated pretty clearly that the plastic axle used to hold the wheel is fragile and prone to snapping. The good fellow then provided a CAD file to 3D print a replacement scroll wheel. Unfortunately, disassembling the mouse to replace the scroll wheel will void your warranty. However, since using the warranty and trading it in will only result your broken scroll wheel being replaced by another easily broken scroll wheel, I don’t see the point in even utilizing a service which is going to give me a soon-to-be broken mouse. So I have decided to order *yet another mouse*, my third Scimitar, so I can have one to salvage for parts. To Corsair’s credit, the thing is incredibly comfortable and I can’t use anything else at this point. The rest of the mouse is sturdy, and it’s reliable. I’ve never had a sensor fail like in some products (*cough*NAGA*cough*THREE TIMES*cough*), the keypad on the side feels robust, and I genuinely love it. It’s just a shame that this bad scroll wheel has been holding it back for YEARS, with no acknowledgement of the issue nor a fix in sight. One has to wonder if this is some sort of planned obsolescence, though it’s probably much less nefarious, and is likely just ignorance and/or an unwillingness to adjust molds/tooling. An initial investment of a new mold with a few fractions of a cent in plastic would solve this problem, Corsair, and it’s disappointing that you haven’t bothered even after YEARS of this issue being reported. If I had any other criticisms, it’s that the strange matte material which covers the mouse will eventually start wearing off. The matte surface is difficult to clean, and the triangle pattern on the right side is VERY difficult to clean. Fortunately or unfortunately, that triangle pattern will wear down over time – and become ugly. I would prefer a slightly domed pattern so I could wipe it down with an alcohol soaked rag, without having to dig between the crevices. That would still provide additional surface area to grip while being easier to maintain. Overall, it’s a 3/5. It has some issues that I feel are either glaring (scroll wheel) or obnoxious (texturing), but it is at the core a great mouse which is held back by its flaws. However, since it is better than all the competition I’ve tried, it’s what I’m stuck with for now.